Jan Fennel - books/methods

thorsoak

krlyr wrote: »

If you want some good reading on dog aggression/reactivity I'd say

Patricia Mcconnell - Feisty Fido: Help for the Leash-Reactive Dog
Jean Donaldson - Fight!: A Practical Guide to the Treatment of Dog-dog Aggression
Emma Parsons - Click to Calm: Healing the Aggressive Dog (Karen Pryor Clicker Book)
James O'Heare - The Dog Aggression Workbook
Grisha Stewart - Behaviour Adjustment Training

I would add to this excellent list Ian Dunbar and Victoria Stillwell.

JF and CM I classify as rubbish .....but I am aware that JF is likely to threaten legal action to anyone who considers her training methods as less than perfect - and CM's fans are just something else - so I prefer not to say much - apart from the fact that both give me extremely negative reactions!!

gettingready

Thanks again...

What I find really, REALLY weird in the book I linked in my first post is JF talking about treating the dog same way as one would like to be treated , not doing to the dog what one does not want to be done to him/her (owners) and then she goes on about that "ignore" for everything....

How does that work then?

To me, this is a contradiction as nobody like to feel ignored...


She goes on about dogs being pack animals and the worst thing for them to be excluded from their pack - then follows about locking a dog away for an hour or longer..

Ergh???

gettingready

krlyr wrote: »

If you want some good reading on dog aggression/reactivity I'd say

Patricia Mcconnell - Feisty Fido: Help for the Leash-Reactive Dog
Jean Donaldson - Fight!: A Practical Guide to the Treatment of Dog-dog Aggression
Emma Parsons - Click to Calm: Healing the Aggressive Dog (Karen Pryor Clicker Book)
James O'Heare - The Dog Aggression Workbook
Grisha Stewart - Behaviour Adjustment Training

Thanks - will see if I can order from library....

krlyr

I've not used it before but APDT do a book library for members (£20 a year), obviously you need to send/receive books over the post (you only pay return postage though). Might be something to look into - possibly a nice Christmas present to ask for?
http://www.apdt.co.uk/resources/apdt-library

lostinrates

it's really interesting to read this with no knowledge of the person at all.

gettingready wrote: »

I have read Dog Listerner, now I am on this one:




They are nice to read books but there is not much in them in terms of "instructions", is there?

Or am I missing something?

I understand the bit about eating first before feeding the dog (and I quite like crackers LOL), the bit about ignoring the dog for 5 min after coming back home - those 2 are fine.
I don't tend to eat first because my morning routine is rushed (I make myself a drink at the same time) and my evening feed routine, timed for their bowel movements and my maximum sleep! Is not a time I want to eat at myself!

I always greet my dogs when I come home, but extremely calmly. I do not encourage over animated greetings , my dogs are big and I am sometimes ona. Stick, it's importnat that they greet me calmly.

But - saying "thank you" to a dog barking if someone knocks on the door... ermmmmmm. Zara does not shut up to "thank you" she dows not shut up for ages if someone knocks/buzzes the intercom. Regardless if I let them in or not. So?????
Thank you is my 'release'command word, I chose it as it reminds me the effort they put in, they don't know it means thanks, but it does mean I say thanks to them when they bark!
What is the 4th rule? Something about walking out of the door first and something else on walks?
. I DO insist on going through doors first. Not as any dominance crazed thing, but it's safer. Having lived in as all houses with lots of big dogs I did this as a100 percent able bodied person, but it's invaluable now, especially with one of my parents living with me.
Who is up to scratch with this "system" and can enlighten me?

Thanks a million

My mother encourages enthusiastic greeting and let's the dogs through doors any old way, one of the reasons now she cannot cope with her dog and it lives with me. Dogs are kind and want to please (well, ours always have, but I wonder about the puppy :rotfl:) and these are clear ways in which my big dogs can inadvertantly cause a lot of damage. They are quite enthusiastic exuberant dogs, which I love, but I don't want to encourage 'over' enthusiasm and risk being knocked over.


The gimmicky element mentioned does put me off a lot, before even reading anything. We see this a lot in horse trainers and it seems to blinker people who follow the methods. I have seen some quite dangerous things going on, and some just down right 'frustrated' people who plug away at their chosen method joylessly. It's a shame, because often there is a nugget of usefulness in the method that gets lost in the gimmicks....and the blinkered people using it won't be flexible, while the people preduced against it are too blinkered to take the useful nugget and try applying it!

It's a shame there are no weekend classes round here that dh could go to with the little one, he doesn't need one to one.

gettingready

My local library can get books for me from all over London, from any library in London - and it is free. But thanks for the link anyway.

gettingready

Bummer - none of those books are available from the library, just checked the catalogue...

krlyr

gettingready wrote: »

Bummer - none of those books are available from the library, just checked the catalogue...

I would imagine they're quite specialist for a regular library to stock, which is why I thought the APDT library was worth linking to just incase

gettingready

Yup, APDT Library may be an option but the grief of posting books back (special trip to post office - nahhhhh) plus the fee.....

Got soem friends who MAY have some of those books , just emailed them

tiggerbodhi

GF is reading the book at the moment (we have 8 dogs ranging in size, age and temperament) due to a few issues we had with behaviour when we moved in together (the two sets of dogs, not us I hasten to add!) we used a local behaviourist who used similar methods to JF, very calm, keeping them all "level" within the pack/group, gesture eating etc, for us it was a revelation, we now have 8 calm and contented dogs ( 7 1/2, the JRT still has moments like she has been on the expresso's and skittles)

One of the techniques the OP mentions is the "Thank You" this was the biggest change for us, one of the dogs is a GSD/Greyhound cross, loves to shout a lot and would run out in the garden barking at the slightest noise or disturbance (Pigeons were a real nemisis for him!) the method given to us was to "thank" the first time, if he barked again we were to "patrol" the garden so he could see us do it, no verbal or eye contact, if this didn't work was to calmly bring him in and exclude him from the pack for 2-3 minutes (no longer)

This has worked amazingly well, I was personally very sceptical and cynical, but he now either will look up from laying down if there is a noise or the door bell, if we praise him he will settle back down, almost if to say "oh they are not bothered so why should I"

With all training I guess it is what works for you, my premis on life with most things is "behaviour rewarded is behaviour repeated" (works with employees sometimes!) but believe that if you use physical control or anything that induces pain or hurt whether it be man, woman, dog, cat or honey badger if it gets the chance to have go back one day it will, often when you are weak, off guard and unable to defend yourself, the worm generally turns at some point.